


Anniversary

by yolock



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Doctor Castiel (Supernatural), Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Domestic Fluff, Mechanic Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26584570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yolock/pseuds/yolock
Summary: Start your own business, while you have two kids and a husband who works in three shifts at the hospital, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 77





	Anniversary

Dean Winchester is having the busiest day.

The whole week has been a pain in the ass, and this Friday seems to be the cherry on top.

First, earlier this week two guys at his garage called in sick and they have been off work since. It doesn’t mean there’s any less cars in need of fixing though, quite the contrary; this week has been the busiest this month, and Dean’s working his ass off, extra hours every day to get everything done.

Start your own business, while you have two kids and a husband who works in three shifts at the hospital, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.

Dean should be happy about the rush because more cars means more money, and don’t get him wrong, he really is. It’s just hard to stay positive sometimes when you haven’t sat down once since you got up the bed in the morning.

He checks the pick up time he has arranged with the customer whose car he just got ready, to see if he has time to run to the store to get something to eat. Cas left for work even earlier than him this morning, leaving him with the kids and let’s just say fighting with Claire Novak and still managing to get both kids to school on time leaves little to no time for breakfast.

Dean’s stomach growls of hunger, but a small smile tugs at his lips when he looks at the small circle he has drawn around today’s date. He’s just about to run out and across the street to buy lunch, when his phone rings.

Small break to eat lunch was too much to ask, apparently. Instead, he runs outside to his car to drive to the school.

-

This is the second time only this fall Dean’s in the principal’s office, sitting next to Claire, who doesn’t even pretend to look ashamed. Dean sighs as he listens to the principal and the teacher explain what his daughter did wrong this time. 

He, of course, wishes his daughter would not get in trouble in the first place, but he hopes the next time it happens – and he knows it will – it will be on Cas’ day off, because when they both work, it’s always Dean who’s able to leave work for it.

Fortunately, they get out of the office quite quickly, after promising once again to discuss at home what is acceptable behavior to have at school and what’s not, and Dean thinks maybe he won’t have to work overtime today after all. Since Claire has only one class left for the day and it has started already, they send her home with Dean.

Or in this case, to the garage because Dean still has a ton of work to do.

“He was being a dick to Alex!” Claire whines when Dean asks why she had to knock her classmate over at the cafeteria.

“Hey! Language”, he lectures as he opens the car door for her. He’s already picking up his daughter because she was being violent at school and gaining disapproving looks from other parents who are picking up the kids with shorter school days, he doesn’t need them judging him for her vocabulary too.

“You say that too!” she points out, quite loudly too. Dean gives an apologetic smile to some woman walking past his car before looking down at Claire again.

“Yeah, well, you’re eight and I’m an adult”, he argues, poorly.

They drive back to the shop, where a customer is already waiting. Dean apologizes and gives him a small discount, before sitting Claire down somewhere and rushing to work.

-

Two hours and surprisingly good amount of work later Dean packs Claire back to the car. Not right away of course, because the second Dean announces they should leave, he finds himself searching for a math book Claire has managed to lose somewhere around the shop. Dean was so busy working he didn’t even realize Claire was moving around at all.

When they finally arrive at the pickup point in the school yard, oil stained book in Claire’s backpack, Jack is already waiting for them.

“Sorry we’re late”, Dean says when Jack sits down. “We had a little math book hunt, but we’ll make it in time to your piano class, don’t worry.” He’s grateful for Cas writing a tiny “piano!” on his calendar with a red marker, right underneath the date, or he would’ve never remembered it, not on a messy day like this.

Jack, on the other hand, lifts his gaze from the game on his phone at the mention of it.

“Aw shit, I forgot my notes.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Jack said shit!”

“Claire!”

“But Jack—”

“Dad—"

“I can say dick if he can say shit!”

“Both of you!” Dean says, voice tired, “Language, please.”

He takes a deep breath and turns the car around. He drives home as fast as he can and still get there safely, waits for Jack to run inside to get his piano notes and drives him to the piano lesson.

He considers it a win when he watches his nine-year-old run inside, and the clock on his wrist tells him they were only about seven minutes late. He turns to look at Claire on the backseat, telling her the next stop is finally at home. He has to start preparing the dough for the pie for tonight. If he does it now, he can start cooking after he has picked up Jack from the class.

“What about the gift?”

“What gift?”

“For Kaia”, Claire says like it’s obvious, “For the birthday party tomorrow.”

-

Maybe he’ll skip the pie from his plan for tonight, he thinks after they’ve spent half an hour at the toy store, searching for a specific warrior toy for Kaia that Claire’s determined to find and she won’t settle for any other toy Dean tries to offer.

Dean had managed to stop by a food stand to buy them some sandwiches to eat on the small walk to the toy store, to avoid the hunger souring the mood for either of them. According to Cas, both him and Claire handle being hungry very poorly, and he tries to keep that in mind.

When she finally finds the one though, and it’s the last one at the end of the shelf, almost hidden, Dean thinks it’s kinda cute how she wanted to get her something she really knows her best friend wants, and didn’t give up until she got it right.

She reminds him of Cas, who always gives the perfect gifts.

They walk past this cute, small ice cream store that sells Cas’ favorite ice cream and since they have a few minutes before they have to run to the car to get Jack, Dean buys some.

-

Dean parks the car and the kids run out the second it stops moving. He opens the front door and commands the kids to come inside, and makes them sit down on the kitchen table to do their homework, so he’ll have time to check his work email in case there’s something important he has to take care of before the weekend.

Then a sidebar advertisement of a grocery store sale reminds him that they forgot to stop to get groceries on their way home.

So, after he’s done with the emails and the kids have done their homework, Dean is once again loading them to the car and they head to the store, which is packed with people, of course, because it’s Friday.

The kids disappear the second Dean spends too much time picking the right kind of steak, but he finds them quickly as Claire accidentally makes a bunch of oranges fall to the floor when she pulls one from the center of the pile.

They get to buy some candy, because it’s Friday, and Jack starts crying because the store has run out of the nougat he loves.

Not to sound too dramatic, but Dean wants to cry as well when they finally get back to the car.

-

The rest of the evening goes in a blur.

Dean remembers he has some paperwork he wants to get done before the weekend, the kids fight over the PlayStation controller, Jack brings a glass of juice on the sofa when Dean’s not watching and accidentally knocks it down on the carpet while Dean tries to make Claire eat the leftover soup she hated yesterday too. He sends the kids to the backyard to play for a moment and dries the juice, but it still leaves a stain.

At some point during the evening Cas has sent him a text saying he has to stay overtime because they are understaffed, and he’s the only doctor available.

Claire pulls out all her clothes from her closet to the floor and they try to come up with an outfit for the birthday party tomorrow, Dean looks up a YouTube tutorial for a specific kind of braid Claire wants to have tomorrow, but it’s hard since she won’t let anyone go near her hair with a brush. Jack builds a Lego tower but it’s too high and it falls down. Fortunately the three of them manage to fix it together before he has a breakdown over it.

Eventually though, after a long battle of evening routines of brushing teeth, changing into pajamas and choosing the bedtime story, and countless toilet breaks during it, the kids are asleep, and Dean closes the bedroom door behind him as quietly as he can.

He walks downstairs and to the living room, tiredly thinking about the uncooked steak and the pie recipe he found a week ago and wanted to make for Cas, who’s not even home yet. Cas, who currently works a god-knows-how-many-hours long shift, who he wanted to surprise tonight with a good meal and some pie.

It’s too late for the pie, but he thinks maybe he’ll make something quick for a super late dinner. He starts folding the pile of laundry that fills the coffee table, and falls asleep on the sofa halfway through the chore.

-

Dean wakes up with a small kiss pressed to his lips. Cas is surrounded with cold air, like he has just gotten inside and despite the dark circles under his eyes his smile lights up his face as he looks down at Dean. Cas runs a cool hand through his sleep-messed hair.

“Hey, handsome.”

“Cas”, Dean manages, voice thick with sleep, “What time is it?”

“I think it’s almost midnight.”

“And they let you leave just now?” Dean asks, “Is that even legal?”

“They didn’t have anyone else”, Cas says, and he looks so tired that he could fall down on the first available flat surface, given the chance.

Dean sits up and makes room for his husband. He looks down at Claire’s tiny t-shirt he has still in his hands and remembers the dinner plan. Fuck.

“Fuck”, he sighs and Cas frowns at him. He turns his gaze to the blue eyes, apologetic, “I was gonna make you a dinner tonight, Cas, I’m sorry.”

Castiel smiles so softly at him and leans in to give another kiss to his husband. “It’s fine”, he speaks against his lips, “I brought beer.”

Dean closes his eyes and leans his forehead against Castiel’s. “You are the perfect man”, he says, “What did do right to deserve you?”

“You fixed my car”, Cas says matter-of-factly, and adds: “while insulting it in rich word choices.”

Dean smiles at the memory of that horrible, ugly golden continental Castiel used to drive.

“Fixing that piece of crap was enough?” Dean laughs, quietly that the kids upstairs won’t wake up.

“It was a promising start”, Cas leans towards the floor, and takes two beers from the six pack and hands one to Dean.

Dean recognizes the label.

“Then you gave me a beer.” The exact same brand, Dean knows he must’ve bought it on purpose. They used to have it at the store, where he used to work before starting his own business. “And you looked very handsome working under the hood of my car.”

“Anyone would look handsome next to that ugly thing”, Dean points out as he opens the bottle before taking Cas’ and opening it for him.

“Well”, Cas starts, and Dean can tell he is doing his best not to roll his eyes at the comment, “as it turned out you happened to look handsome everywhere else too.”

Twelve years later and Dean still blushes a bit at Castiel’s words.

“And you do the laundry”, Castiel continues, voice low, nodding towards the pile of neatly folded clothes before leaning his back against the sofa, “and you take very good care of our home and our children.”

“You make it sound so hot.”

There’s a spark in Castiel’s blue eyes. “It is very hot.”

“Yeah, well”, Dean grins, lifting his feet to the coffee table, “You do the dishes more often than me. I find it very sexy.”

Now Castiel can’t hold back the eye roll, but the spark in his eyes doesn’t dim one bit and Dean’s so crazy in love with him. “I bet you do.”

Their conversation switches to the day behind them, Cas talks about the crazy shift he had, Dean tells about the day he had with the kids, about the crying about nougat and the principal’s office, and the look on Claire’s face when she finally found the right toy. 

And right there and then, with Cas by his side, the day, as chaotic as it was, doesn’t seem so bad.

“Oh, and I bought you that ice cream”, Dean suddenly remembers, and he’s about to get up to get it when he suddenly realizes something. Fuck.

“Fuck”, he closes his eyes and rubs a hand across his face.

“You left it in the car?”

“I left it in the car.”

The heartfelt laugh that escapes Castiel’s lips and the look he gives Dean is worth cleaning off the melted ice cream from the seats tomorrow. Dean puts his arm around Castiel’s shoulders and pulls him close.

The beer is warm, and to be honest not even that good, but still so perfect.

Dean looks at Cas, with so much love for him, for the life they’ve built together, since that chilly but sunny September morning exactly twelve years ago, when Castiel walked into that garage. That first meeting that lead to a date, that lead to many others, eventually to marriage and two, perfect children and a home.

The living room is peaceful and quiet, they don’t turn on the TV but enjoy the comfortable silence.

He clinks his beer bottle against Castiel’s.

“Happy 18th of September, Cas.”

“Happy 18th, Dean.”

**Author's Note:**

> there's a rebloggable link [here](https://cvsnovak.tumblr.com/post/629633733497061376/anniversary-i-wanted-to-write-something-for-the)!
> 
> [follow me on tumblr](https://cvsnovak.tumblr.com/) :)


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